Knowing the consistency with which I go, she asked me if I ever felt like not going to my Tai Chi classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
I thought about it, and came to the realization that I didn’t. There have been winter nights where the combination of snowstorm and ailing transit system have suddenly left me with a welcome free night, but other than that, I always enjoy going to class.
Before Tai Chi was table tennis1, and some days, I’d have to force myself to go. But when I was there, in the middle of a good rally, then panting, sweating, exhausted afterward, I’d always remind myself that I was glad I went.
Tai Chi offers me something else though, a way for me to lose myself for an hour or two. Maybe because it takes so much focus, or so much focus to not focus on anything, that I’m able to forget everything else. Even when I’m practicing the form on my own it’s not the same. Being at the studio with the other students — learning from and teaching each other, applying the principles we can’t practice by ourselves — lets me get away. On top of that, I know that I’m improving, even if I may not notice it in myself.
And that’s enough to make me look forward to my next class as soon as I step out of the studio into the cool night air.
- Unfortunately, they’re both on the same nights during the week, which means I have to choose one over the other [↑]
Isn’t it an amazing feeling when you find yourself doing something that’s so absorbing that everything else melts away?
You have Tai Chi, I had Karate and Tae Kwon Do. The side benefit to being able to defend myself against bullies when I was a kid was to get rid of those excess anger that I always had pent up.
Eventually though, it help me control and focus my anger and frustration to what it is now. Like all forms of martial arts including Tai Chi, it’s more about the discipline of mind rather than just the body.
Sometimes I think I should take up something like that again, while my body can’t really handle so much physical strain theses days, maybe there should be an equal alternative.
@Kate Saltfleet — Absolutely…and the only things that can do this for me are Tai Chi and games.
@Edrei — Why can’t your body handle the physical strain anymore? Is it because of your previous martial art training? Many of my Tai Chi classmates are afflicted from things related to their days of learning hard “external” martial arts. From what I know, the Yang style of Tai Chi is much easier on the body, as long as your teacher is very aware of how to take care of the knees and prevent any damage from bad habits or sloppy practice.
Martial arts and extreme sports. I used to push myself a lot as a kid, even though I couldn’t really take it, physically. The end result are a whole lot of bumps, bruises, scrapes and broken bones. Some healed, some got worse over time, primarily my knees which haven’t healed in years.
I wouldn’t know much about Tai Chi forms. I used to see a lot of old people practicing it every morning around where I used to live. Slow meditative moves that work up a sweat.
I miss those days when I could let my anger out. Better in practice than unintentionally.
Good your teacher is aware like that. I had a couple Tai Chi teachers who didn’t know body or thought they could improv and riff with the form. To my knee’s detriment. A third teacher was keenly aware of inner and outer forms.
I believe that a good teacher can modify the form to their students’ needs, although it should probably remain consistent and not so much an “improvisation”. And isn’t the point of adjusting the form for the benefit of the students, and not the detriment of their joints?
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